The report of the fatal accident happened in 22-8-1999, Hong Kong, for flight number CI642 of China Airlines will release soon. The report said that the main cause is not from the pilots, but the computer program of Boeing MD-11, program number FCC907 which is specially designed for a crosswind landing.

Last year, Typhoon Sam was approaching Hong Kong, the CI642 from Bangkok was on the way home to Taipei via Hong Kong. At 1845 (GMT+8), the plane was cleared to land at runway 25L, but the plane made a heavy landing in crosswind landing. The plane roll to the right with up-side-down, the right wing was collapsed, 3 were killed with 210 injured.

From the report, Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (HKCAD) made the investigation for a year, and the last meeting was held yesterday, the safty officer of China Airlines was invited to the meeting.

HKCAD has told to the Taiwan Safty Flight Department (translation) and China Airlines about the conclusion. The report concluded that the crashing was made by the landing program with number FCC907. HKCAD invited some experienced pilots to fly again in the simulator with the same weather of the day, but most of them did the same thing: crashing, just 1 of them could land with another heavy landing. In 31-7-1997, a Fedex MD-11 was crashed in New York in crosswind landing, also made a rolling.

Although the report was not released yet, Boeing has already released a new program with number FCC908 to replace FCC907 in 25-7-2000, to fix the problem of rolling; all of the 4 MD-11 remaining in CI has been upgraded.